


The Mental Toll

by arcticchare



Category: MILGRAM (Music Videos)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Panic Attacks, Set In The Prison, or something similar, set in june
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:40:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27328939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcticchare/pseuds/arcticchare
Summary: Having one's memories extracted and turned into audio/video can't be a pleasant thing. And it is not, which Haruka finds out, being the first person to go through the process. He doesn't handle it well.Yuno calms him down afterwards.
Relationships: Kashiki Yuno & Sakurai Haruka
Kudos: 17





	The Mental Toll

**Author's Note:**

> my writing now comes with actual dialogue and an attempt at paragraph length variation. enjoy, hopefully.
> 
> pasting from google docs deleted my italics but whatever I'll edit that at some point later.

Haruka slumped against the wall of his cell as Es slammed the door shut, curling up into a ball as the echoing footsteps of the warden got quieter and quieter.

What had he done? Why had he- Why had he...

His mind was in shambles. Whatever they had done to extract his mental images and thoughts had dragged everything that he had been trying to force to the back of his mind to the forefront of it.

His sins - the acts that had landed him in MILGRAM in the first place.

The images that had been transferred onto that film were warped by his own memory and perspective but still accurate enough that he could see the events all over again - just in third person.

He wretched at the thought, but nothing came out.

When he closed his eyes, all he could see was the technicolour silhouettes of the people he had disappointed and betrayed - of the body of the one he had murdered in cold blood.

He felt lower than all of the other prisoners at this moment, despite knowing that they were all murderers too. How many of them had killed a loved one as well? It couldn’t be that many - there were only 12 of them. He was despicable.

Haruka shuddered as tears began to gather in his eyes. How was he going to face the other prisoners the next time they were allowed into the same room? The reminder of what he had done had destroyed any attempt at trying to bury those thoughts deep inside of him.

And there were two more sessions left.

He didn’t know if he was going to be able to stand it.

He had just wanted affection. He didn’t mean to- he hadn’t intended to-

“Haruka?”

He looked up, not bothering to wipe away the tears streaking down his cheeks.

The voice had come from across the prison corridor, from Yuno, who was prisoner number two.

“Are you alright?”

Yuno probably couldn’t see him from his position. He was curled up in the shadows of his cell, out of the range of the bright lightbulb in the corridor.

“Not really.” He replied softly. It would have been rude to ignore her.

“...How was the session?” She inquired, her voice less bubbly than usual.

She sounded subdued, quiet. It was such a change that Haruka couldn’t place his finger on what she was trying to get at.

“It was-” He cut off, images flashing before his eyes again. Silhouettes, memories, pleading blue eyes- “-not nice.”

A hand reached up to cover his mouth, failing to stop another sob from escaping. Haruka took a deep breath, and then another, and then another until he couldn’t breathe but he was breathing too much all the same.

“Haruka?” Yuno’s voice came echoed across the corridor again. “Haruka, are you- Are you breathing alright?”

Those words got through to him, but they were muffled as though he was underwater.

“Haruka, do you remember what we did when we first met?”

He did. Robotically, he wiped his tears away from his mouth and tried to breathe in deeply. At first, it was interspersed with short jumps where he breathed in too quickly, but gradually began to even out.

He didn’t want to close his eyes, so he focused on the bars of the prison. Grey metal, cold to the touch. The floor - concrete and equally cold. He grounded himself.

“Are you feeling alright?”

He wasn’t, but he was feeling better, so he voiced that thought.

“That’s good, I’m sorry for asking about the session.”

“It’s fine.” What could he say?

She wasn’t at fault in any way. Yuno was too kind to deserve her place in MILGRAM, even though she had said that she was a murderer too.

“It’s…” he paused, considering his next train of thought carefully. “I didn’t mean to murder him. I just…”

Yuno waited patiently for him to continue.

“...I just let everything I was feeling out and the next thing I know there’s a body in front of me and there’s no life left in him. I didn’t mean to murder him. I didn’t mean to-” Haruka’s voice cracked, and he stopped talking, trying to hold in his tears. “I don’t deserve to be with you all, I’m far worse than you - I loved him but I still killed him because I just wanted to be noticed.”

“I meant my murder.” Yuno spoke up. “I don’t regret it, although I know I loved them too.”

Haruka paused, looking in the direction of Yuno for the first time. She was sat on her bed, staring forlornly at her hands.

“I knew I didn’t want to support them, so I killed them. My motive was purely selfish. I don’t mean to say that your motive isn’t, but yours came from wanting love - a normal human instinct. I didn’t do the best things to obtain affection, which is why I can say that it wasn’t entirely your fault.

You did kill someone you loved unintentionally, but would you do it again if you had the ability to turn back time?”

He startled at the question, but answered vehemently, “Of course not.”

“And that is what makes you better than me, at least. I would have done mine all over again, no matter how much it hurt physically and emotionally. I killed willingly - you didn’t.”

Haruka watched her look up and look vaguely in his direction, knowing that he was too far into the shadows for her to be able to spot her.

“You’re better than me, even if you think otherwise. And if you must think that way, at least acknowledge that we’re all murderers here. You are no worse than anyone else here.”

The cover of darkness hid his face as tears once again trickled down his face. This time, though, they weren’t entirely regretful and full of self-loathing.

He pulled his face out into something resembling a smile with difficulty, trying it out.

“Thank you, Yuno.”

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this in about an hour, am very proud since it usually takes longer. comments welcome :)
> 
> also plugging the 'milgram stanclub' discord for giving me translations to base my characterisations on, link is on the reddit probably.


End file.
